Abstract
The
aim of this article is to investigate the situation of the rural
servants in Norway from the preindustrial period, the rural Norway,
to industrialisation in the middle of XIX century. I will summarise
the research that has been carried out in Norway. In particular I
will describe the evolution of the servant’s role and tasks,
underlining the transformations and passages from an agrarian society
to an industrial one and the importance of the service activities
from a demographic prospective. Furthermore I will describe the
gender roles, the sex-ratio, the differences between male and female
servants and the differences in the treatment they received. I will
contextualise the case of Norway and see if there were similitudes or
differences in accordance with what happened in the rest of the
Europe.

The
aim of this article is to investigate the situation of the rural
servants in Norway from the preindustrial “bondesamfunn”
to industrialisation in the middle of XIX century. I will summarise
the research that has been carried out in Norway. In particular I
will describe the evolution of the servant’s role and tasks,
underlining the transformations and passages from an agrarian society
to an industrial one and the importance of the service activities
from a demographic prospective. Furthermore I will describe the
gender roles, the sex-ratio, the differences between male and female
servants and the differences in the treatment they received. I will
contextualise the case of Norway and see if there were similitudes or
differences in accordance with what happened in the rest of the
Europe.

Today
there are many studies of domestic service in Europe but until the
1990s this topic didn´t attract much attention from scholars.
The studies done in Norway also reflect this trend but the last 20 or
30 years have brought an increasing number of studies of domestic and
rural servants. Sølvi Sogner (1997, 2005) is among the most
important scholars to have studied domestic service in Norway.
Feminist historians have tended to treat domestic service as part of
gender studies. Particular emphasis has been devoted to the study of
urbanisation and transformation of the domestic service and to the
role of the migration.

Norway
is situated west of the John Hajnal´s imaginary line that
divided Europe in two, from Trieste
to St. Petersburg. This means that according to Hajnal’s (1965)
so-called “European marriage pattern”, Norway should have
had a high average age of marriage for men and for women and
consequently many single people. To the east, conversely, given that
the average age of marriage was lower, there were fewer single men
and women.
According
to Hajnal (1983), in Western Europe people were forced to marry late
because they had to work in order to be able to establish their own
nuclear family. As a result, very often and as a last resort, they
had to work as servants. In this regard John Hajnal together with
Peter Laslet (1977), introduced the concept of life-cycle servants.
According
to Hajnal in
the early 20th century
the average marriage age for Norwegian women was around 23 years and
for men it was 26. (1983) Hajnal's analysis was discussed in studies
that demonstrated that the situation was far more complex than his
“European marriage pattern” theory claimed. (Livi Bacci,
1998) For Norway Hajnal’s theories were confirmed, among
others, by studies by the historical demographer Sølvi Sogner
(1999) that found that people married even later than Hajnal
believed: at 25 years of age for women and at 28 for men.

The
preindustrial period (until the middle of the XIX century) and the
agrarian servants

I
have divided the history of the Norwegian servants in two parts:
preindustrial and industrial. The preindustrial era lasted from late
XVIIIth century until the middle of XIXth. The second period -- from
the middle of the XIX century -- started with a timid
industrialisation and an improvement in the condition of life of
Norwegian people, and ended with the transformation of the country
into a modern urban society. My analysis will be investigate the
lives of rural servants in the Norwegian countryside and only
subsequently lives of domestic servants in the cities. My article
doesn´t pretend to be exhaustive and is based on the research
in Norway concerning rural and urban servants. I apologize for all
omissions.

In
pre-industrial Norway, 9 of 10 Norwegians lived in the countryside.(Sogner
2003, p. 40) This means that 90% of the population lived in rural
areas. (Avdem and Melby, 1985, p. 10) Christiania in 1855 had a
population of 40.000 inhabitants. Norway, as the other rural society
in Europe had a subsistence economy whose primary objective was to
produce food, instruments and all the essential goods indispensable
for a family and a farm to survive. Norwegians family lived in a
nuclear households, usually consisting of a couple with children. The
household, especially if big enough, could host other relatives. Thus
it was not unusual to find also extended and enlarged type
aggregates. (Avdem and Melby, 1985, p. 15)

According
to Ståle Dyrvik, (1979, pp. 192-193) in 1801 there were 95.000
servants in the Norwegian countryside. This accounts for 12% of the
national population. In the city of Christiania the percentage was
even higher: 14 % of the city population. (Sprauten, 1992, p. 365)
According to Hanne
Østhus
in 1801 the 47% of all females 20 years old and over and 60% of all
males between 15 and 29 were servants. Similarly high percentages
were observed for Sweden; in North Sweden in the1800s, 60-70 % of
people were servants. According to Borje Harnesk, (1990,
p. 9)
in Sweden in the 1700s and 1800s there were one or two servants on
each farm.

Table
1. Source: Dyrvik 1984, Historisk Statistikk 1978

Year

Total
number servants

Servants
pr. 100 inhabitants

Women

1801

105.140

11,92

7,8

1825

136.449

-

-

1835

139.954

-

-

1845

162.957

12,3

7,8

1855

163.681

11,0

7,1

1865

159.062

9,4

6,5

1875

159.636

8,8

6,7

1890

143.941

7,2

5,7

1900

127.343

5,7

4,6

1910

121.447

5,1

4,2

1920

115.328

4,4

3,7

1930

134.232

5,1

4,3

The
age of the servants

It
is possible to find differences in the conditions of servants before
and after the industrialisation of the country in 1850. Before 1850,
young people were expected to work as servants; this changed after
industrialisation.

Young
Norwegians in pre-industrial Norway moved from farm to farm, from
area to area to be employed as servants in the years between their
confirmation and their marriage. The majority of servants were
therefore young -about 12 years’ old- but the age could
fluctuate depending on the area, the family economy and need. A study
shows that in Trøndelag and in Vestlandet, servants were
starting even earlier than the average age. (Jan
Oldervoll, pp. 91-95)
For children of very poor families, service could start when children
were as young as 6 or 7. In some areas on the west coast of Norway
–according to some sources - 7% of children aged 7, were
servants. Very young children were between 2% and 5% of all the
servants in Norway. (Frode
Myrheim,
2006, pp. 40-42) This was often the case of very poor families that
had to send their own children into service in order to survive or
for orphans. In this case service and life cycle service provided a
remedy and often a comfort. In pre-industrial Norway children or
parents often died early. To find another family was some
compensation for the high mortality rate. The majority of servants,
boys and girls, were around 12. A century later the girls tended to
stay home until age 15; their brothers left at 17. (Sølvi
Sogner, 2005,
p. 34)

Very
few servants were recorded as “old” or married. This
means that a small number of servants spend their entire lives in
this role. We can conclude that in Norway to work as a servants was
usually a temporary phase that ended with marriage. Service was
therefore a learning time, but also a waiting time: waiting to
inherit or to access their part of an inheritance. In the meantime
children were obliged to work as servants. The relation between
servants and master was often a relation of social equals. Servants
were usually considered members of the master´s family. Anne
Høsthus (2007, p. 3) uses the expression paternalism
to describe the relation between masters and servants. They were an
integral part of the family farm and subjected to the authority of
the head of the household. (Sølvi
Sogner, 2005, p. 14) Even
if they were very often totally integrated in the family, they had
the same status as the children. This means they had no power and
authority at all. Sølvi Sogner stated that servants had a low
position in Norwegian society. As we have seen to work as servant was
a stadium in the life of a person in which the majority went through,
therefore was much easier for a servant to accept the authority of a
master, especially one who had formerly been a servant.

Wages

How
much could a servant earn? Were they paid in money or in goods? One
peculiarity among Norwegian servants is that they had to pay the
taxes on their loan. This could be an interesting difference between
the north and the south of Europe where servants were seldom taxed.
This endorsement was introduced in Norway after the costly Northern
War (1700-1720) that forced the Danish-Norwegian crown to impose a
tax also on the thin loans of the Scandinavian servants. From now on
they were obliged to pay a seventh of their earnings in tax. (Sølvi
Sogner, 2005, p. 19)
Servants’ wages were very low and depended on the servant’s
gender, age, and the regional job market. A servant in Trømso
could earn just 1,50 riksdaler
a
year, in the region of Finnmark was possible to earn up to 5,77
riksdaler
a year. According to Kvalvåg the average wage for rural
servants in the south of the country was 2,81 for girls and 3,61 for
boys. (Leif
Ødegaard, 1975, p. 180)
The lowest loan was paid to young girls at the beginning of their
professional life: 1 riksdaler
per
year. The highest -- 6 riksalder
--
was earned by governess and wet nurses. A normal servant could earn
normally between two and three riksdaler.
(Sølvi
Sogner, 2005, p. 19)
For the sake of comparison, a barrel of grain cost one riksdaler
and
a cow cost three riksdaler.
(Sissel
Bakke: 53)
In was not rare for servants to be paid in kind, usually in clothes
and shoes. Farmers did not have much money to pay the servants and
money was not circulating as much as today, therefore wages were
often paid in grain or goods. Usually half of the wage was in
clothes. Usually girls received the 57,8 % of their wages in clothes
and the remaining 42,2% in money. Boys received 58,3% of the wages in
clothes and the remaining 41,6 % in money. (Sissel
Bakke: 67) Even
though female servants earned less than male servants, they were
often worked as hard, so it was cheaper to hire a woman. Boys had
usually higher wages than girls. Servants in Nord Norway earned less
than servants coming from other regions but Leif Ødegaard
(1975, pp. 288-289) shows that servants in Finmark (extreme Nord)
were earning more than other servants. Sølvi Sogner (2005, p.
20) presents the case of those servants who were paid entirely in
clothing. These tended to be young servants in a very poor family who
just needed a place to live. Children were also paid in clothes.
Servants also received food and a place to sleep, usually in the farm
were they were working.

Under
these circumstances, can we say that to be a servant in the 1800
century Norway was really a profession? Were people who worked as
servants just for a brief period of their life be considered
servants? Or we can consider servant those who served for the rest of
their life and defined by Laslet as “Lifetime servants”.
Richard Wall (2004, p. 21) shows for England that after 1800 domestic
service became a class as well as an age-specific type of employment.
Once someone had become a servant, then it would be difficult to find
any other occupation. This was not the case of Norway where the
majority of young people worked as servants for 10- 15 years before
getting married and finding other employment. The same was observed
in Sweden were the majority of men working as servants, were later
working in other jobs. (Børje
Harnesk,
1990, pp. 216-221)
Servants
according with “Kristian 5” law, had usually a written
contract that lasted six months or a year. (Sogner, 2005, p. 14) We
can therefore characterize Norwegian domestic service, especially
masculine, as a kind of pre-employment rather than an occupation. In
the majority of the cases, servants in Norway were integrated into
the household and had had a regular contract.

Sex
ratio

How
many servants in preindustrial Norway had a farm? Sølvi Sogner
wrote that a three- quarters of the farms in Norway had servants.
Usually they had just one: a girl. Quite a lot had two: a boy and a
girl. Very few farms had more than two servants. A study for an area
around the city of Bergen (Nordhordland and Voss) shows a big
circulation of servants. Almost half of farms had servants with 58%
recorded for the parish of Voss. (Sissel
Bakke: 2009)
The sex ratio in preindustrial Norway varied. Women were the majority
and some studies have showed that in the 1600s, some areas had a
predominance of female servants. In the fishing districts, male
servants outnumbered female servants. Sex ratio was decided by the
availability of working force, but also by the necessity of the farm,
the natural resources and type of work that needed to be done. This
applied only in the countryside. (Sissel
Bakke, 2009, pp. 39-40)
It was possible to find servants in all social groups in the
countryside as in the cities. Servants in Norway were a mobile work
force. A farmer could not have more than a couple of males sons over
the age of 18 years old at home. Some of them were obliged to find
employment as a servant in another farm. As we are going to see
later, this was regulated by the Norwegian law. To work as a servant
was a factor also of modernity and sometimes of emancipation. Often
it was the only way for a daughter to leave her parents’
household. Servants were sleeping alone and experienced for the first
time a certain freedom, even sexual freedom.

Servants
moved around in Norway but also in cities like Amsterdam. Sølvi
Sogner has studied Norwegian servants’ migration to the
Netherlands between 1601 and 1800. Thousands of young Norwegians
moved to Dutch cities to work as servants, especially in the
beginning, and until they were able to find better paid jobs. A large
proportion of these servants were young unmarried women. In the
Netherlands both women and men could earn much more than they could
in Norway. In the majority of the cases, working temporarily as a
servant was a temporary phase in the life of a woman before marriage.
Frode Myrheim (2006) has studied the geographic mobility of Norwegian
servants in the 1700s century. Mobility in Norway was higher among
female than among male servants. Servants moved after labour needs
had changed or after changes in the household cycle; poor diet, bad
relations with the householder, and to get married. Sometimes a
servant moved because of differences in the loans. The movements of
the servants were regulated by law and servants could just move twice
a year: 14 April or 14 October. Servants were moving often and the
majority had a contract that lasted half year or a year. It was very
rare for servants to remain in service for more than a couple of
years. We can extend to Norway the same conclusion that Richard Wall
(1987, p. 81) had pointed out for England as characterised by mass
movement of adolescent since also Norwegian youth were quite mobile.
How did a young servant find employment in preindustrial Norway? The
majority of servants found employment through network and family
contact and relationships. For those who were not finding a master
with this means –and this was just for Christiania -- they
could register in an “engagement office” byens
festemenn,
that had opened in 1739. The servant’s workday started around 5
or 6 o´clock. He or she would light the oven so that the house
would be warm when the family woke up. In the 1700s and 1800s a
servant usually worked 15-16 hours a day.

The
regulation: Rights of servant

Raffaella
Sarti (Sarti, 2014, p. 310) pointed out that historical research has
showed that servants and domestic workers have been fighting for
their rights for at least a couple of centuries. This doesn´t
seem the case for Norway where the rights of servants and masters
were carefully regulated. Sølvi Sogner reveals that in the
sixteenth century policies were introduced which guaranteed the
availability of agricultural labour. To work as a servant was
mandatory. In 1291 there was a law that forced poor people who did
not have an occupation to work as servants. In 1349 after the Black
Death (and the consequent shortage of labour) people out of work were
obliged to serve for at least one year. Throughout the 1500s new
regulations required farmers to have enough servants. Compulsory
service became a part of Christian 5S Norwegian law in 1687 that
remained in force for almost 200 years. The law obliged unmarried
young people to work as servants until they were able to have their
own farm or another profession. (Sogner 2005, pp. 14-15) The law was
designed to ensure that unmarried children above the age of 18 who
were redundant on the farm to look for service work. The class
dimension of regulating labour in this Norwegian case can be seen by
the ruling that able-bodied men or women “of restricted means”
were obliged to take up work in service. This law was not abolished
until the late nineteenth century. (Sogner 2004, p. 180) According to
the authorities, to force the entire population into stable
employment prevented begging and vagrancy. As I already highlighted a
law from 1754 prohibited a farmer from having more than a daughter
and a son at home. The other children were obliged to move to another
household or be employed as servants. The fear of people being idle,
which was considered to lead to criminality, is also illustrated by
Lund’s (2004) studies on Sweden. Lund shows that anybody who
did not own or lease land or possess other sources of income had to
find employment as a servant.

Both
servant and master duties were strictly regulated. Servants were
bound to the farm for six months or one year. They were also obliged
to inform the farmer seven weeks before moving. It was illegal for
the servant to sign a service contract and not to show up and it was
illegal for a master to turn down a servant who had signed a
contract. The master was also obliged to pay the servant on time.
Servant could leave tenancy if he or she was not treated
appropriately, but in this case a judge or legal authority would
intervene. (Østhus
2007)
Breaches of the service contract would be punished and both servants
and masters paid a penalty if they broke the contract. The master had
the rights to chastise and to guide the servant as if he or she was
his own child. Is interesting to observe that the master had a moral
obligation to his servant. For example he had to make provisions for
the servant to attend church or execute his religious obligations.
Masters also had control over the servant’s sexual life.
Masters were obliged to issue a letter of reference for the servant
after the period of service. The scripted declaration could be
written also by the other authorities of the district. A servant who
was accepting other jobs without a “pass” or
“certificate” could be punished. Masters in turn were
fined for writing deceptive information about a servant.

Servants
in the cities: The feminization of the domestic service

In
1801 lived in cities less than 10 % of the entire Norwegian
population. In 1900 just one third of the entire population of Norway
lived in cities. The population in Norway doubled and from 1815 to
1865, increased from 900.000 to 1.700.000. As industries grew, so did
the nautical industry which became a resource of vital importance for
the future of the country. The naval sector was going to hire a
consistent number of workers and generate revenue for the Norwegian
economy. In the XIX century Norway changed from an agrarian into a
modern urban society. (Sogner, 2005, p. 39)

In
1875 there were 76 000 inhabitants in Christiania and 7000 servants.
(Sogner, 2005, p. 50) To find employment as a servant was the most
important source of money for women. The city grew and so did the
demand for servants. Better diet, hygiene, living conditions improved
and life expectancy increased for the Norwegian population. Thousands
of young people were moving to the city to find better lives and
jobs. At the same time, other Norwegians crossed the Atlantic. Most
of them were finding employment as servants. The feminisation of
domestic service happened across Europe and it is well documented.
As pointed out by Raffaella Sarti (2006, p. 23) in many European
countries the percentage of domestic workers in the economically
active population peaked around the 1880s and thereafter declined
into the early decades of the twentieth century. What happened in the
North? Did the country have a “servant problem” or a
“servant shortage”? In Norway the feminisation of
domestic service started in the 1800 with the industrialisation of
Norway and especially in Christiania, but women were already the
majority. In the 1801 between two of three girls and one of three
boys were servants. In 1901one in three girls and one in ten boys
were servants. (Sogner, 2005, p. 39) In the 1900s Norway saw the
disappearance of the male servant.

The
feminization of domestic service brought also a difference in the
relation between master and servants, the social distances between
them and in the attitude toward servants. The middle class could
afford servants. To have servants was not just a necessity but also a
status symbol. It was especially prestigious to have a male servant
like a butler. (Sogner, 2005, p. 21) To have a servant gave status to
a family. There was a hierarchy among the servants working in a
house. One-fourth of families had a domestic servant. Seventy per
cent had just one, 20% had two and the 10% had three or more. Solvi
Sogner (2005, p. 50) shows that 40 % of employed women in Christiania
between 1900 and 1930 were servants. Men preferred to avoid domestic
service; jobs in industry paid better. Thus for men wage labour
replaced life cycle-service. For a young woman the only way to
survive in a city was originally to work as a servant in a middle
class home. And even though also women after a while could find
employment in the new born industry, at the beginning it was not that
common. Later the improved employment possibilities - even for women
- would eventually lead to the disappearance of the servants of both
sexes altogether and bring Norway to face what Raffaella Sarti called
the “servant problem”, “servant shortage”, or
“great question”, “crise
de la domesticite”
in French”, “crisi
delle domestiche”
in Italian. (Sarti, 2014)
In
other words, domestic servants disappeared from Norway. (Hagemann,
1997, p. 157). The demise of the life cycle servant brought a
decrease in nuptiality and the fact that women and men were earning a
salary made it possible to marry earlier. (Thorvaldsen)
When the cities were still facing a high demand for domestic
servants, the specialisation of the domestic service sector began,
with more roles and functions inside the house.

Sogner,
S. (2004). The Legal Status of Servants in Norway from the
Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century. In Fauve Chamoux
A., Domestic
Service and the formation of European Identity (pp.
175-187)
Bern:
Peter Lang.